A huge thank you must go to His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammef Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of Dubai Sports Council for his continuing Patronage, sponsorship and support of the Dubai International Parachuting Competition without which none of this would have been possible.

Also a thank you to the Emirates Aerosport Federation (EAF) and Skydive Dubai and the various committees and people who worked so hard to make this a success.

Three years ago Gillian Rayner of the International Parachuting Commission (IPC) and Axel Zohmann of the International BodyFlight Association met to discuss the feasibility of hosting a World Cup for Indoor Skydiving. The IPC went on to modify the “outdoor” rules for skydiving for use indoors to include four disciplines: Formation Skydiving (FS), Vertical Formation Skydiving (VFS) as well as for the artistic events which include Freefly and Freestyle.

In January of 2014, iFLY Austin’s Operations Manager Erin Horton secured the bid to host the 1st FAI World Cup of Indoor Skydiving. On November 13th, months of hard work came together as the President of the International Parachute Council, Graeme Windsor, declared the meet officially open. An air of anticipation passed through the banquet room for no one quite knew what to expect, as the weekend was to be the first of its kind.

]]>skydive@papillon-properties.com (Susan Dixon)Fri, 05 Dec 2014 04:31:56 +0000Executive Board and Liaison Officers in Dubai to Discuss the FAI World Air Gameshttp://www.fai.org/ipc-news/39072-executive-board-and-liaison-officers-in-dubai-to-discuss-the-fai-world-air-games
http://www.fai.org/ipc-news/39072-executive-board-and-liaison-officers-in-dubai-to-discuss-the-fai-world-air-gamesFAI officials gathered in Dubai this week to get to know the members of the Organising Committee, the host city and the competition venues of the FAI World Air Games Dubai 2015. A series of meetings were held where the Executive Board and the FAI World Air Games Experts from the Sports Commissions discussed the key issues pertinent to FAI’s flagship event.

Final Day of the World Cup of Indoor Skydiving

Today was the third and final day of the 1st World Cup of Indoor Skydiving. The final results, together with a judged video for each flight, are available at the relevant link above. The final rounds were conducted with a huge number of spectators in attendance and the atmosphere was electric, although there was not much risk of a change in the final ranking in FS. Flying kicked off with FS Open followed by FS Female. The two rounds were rapidly completed and the judges kept up pretty well with the scoring. FS Open was won by the Bad Boys from the Czech Republic and Female FS was won by Aerokart Deep Blue from France. After a break when the FAI Officials were given another opportunity to fly, the Artistic Events took off. Judging AE is slower than FS so while waiting for the scores to come out, the iFly staff gave a brilliant demonstration of what can be done in a tunnel. The final round brought some change to the Freestyle scores with Olga Bakulina from Russia slipping from second place to third, replaced by Collective Freestyle (Michael Sylva Jr).

The competitors meeting was held at 15.00 hrs with Dr. 'Exi' Rainer Hoenle (Committee Chair, CP) explaining the changes to the rules proposed for the coming year. These were generally well accepted and the questions raised by the competitors will be considered by the committee at the next IPC plenary meeting in Jan/Feb 2015.

The closing ceremony happened as planned at 18.30 and medals and diplomas were awarded. This was followed by the closing banquet, with good food and a happy and relaxed atmosphere. Jim Heyhurst handed out the various certificates for National records that had been broken during the competition.

At the opening ceremony of the 38th CISM WPMC in Indonesia, IPC President, Graeme Windso was presented with his Indonesian Parachute Wings in respect of the jumps he had made from the miliary aircraft in Solo.

]]>skydive@papillon-properties.com (Susan Dixon)Mon, 22 Sep 2014 13:28:57 +0000COLPAR Latin American Championships in Canopy Piloting 2014 - Resultshttp://www.fai.org/ipc-news/38666-event98239827colparcp2014
http://www.fai.org/ipc-news/38666-event98239827colparcp2014COLPAR recently concluded their Latin American Championships in Canopy Piloting, 3 – 7 September 2014, which were held at the National Skydiving Centre in the City of Boituva, being about 116kms from Brazil's largest city, São Paulo.

]]>skydive@papillon-properties.com (FK)Tue, 16 Sep 2014 20:24:48 +0000Tim Macehttp://www.fai.org/ipc-news/38664-tim-mace
http://www.fai.org/ipc-news/38664-tim-maceIt was with sadness that I heard yesterday of Tim Mace’s death. Tim had been suffering from cancer, and was a registered competitor last month in the Speed Skydiving World Cup at Prostejov. It was clear at that time that Tim was not well, and his illness forced him to withdraw.

Day 6: 30 August 2014

The last day of the competition with quite a few rounds left to complete, but the rain originally forecast for the early part of the day hasn't materialised, but it may mean a few cloud-dodging loads.

The 1st World Cup in Speed Skydiving has now completed and in doing so has produced three new World Records (see below). All three records will need to be ratified by their NACs and the FAI - but congratulations to them all and indeed, the first ever medal winners:-

Bulletin No. 1 is now published on this site. Either click on the link above -

or go to the Events Callendar button to the right of this page: beneath the Upcoming FAI World and Continental Championships (cat 1) table click on - "All upcoming Cat 1 Events" - find the entry for the 1st FAI World Cup of Indoor Skydiving and click on - the PDF symbol.

]]>skydive@papillon-properties.com (Susan Dixon)Fri, 27 Jun 2014 09:34:00 +0000Get the Bug for Air Sports with the new FAI Videohttp://www.fai.org/ipc-news/38417-get-the-bug-for-air-sports-with-the-new-fai-video
http://www.fai.org/ipc-news/38417-get-the-bug-for-air-sports-with-the-new-fai-videoThe FAI has released a new video featuring all air sports activities under the umbrella of the Federation. The 3-minute film succinctly presents the FAI sports and includes footage of FAI international records from Charles Lindbergh to Felix Baumgartner.